Dante held up his bag. “Spaghetti hoops.”
“On toast?”
“Nope.”
“Just spaghetti hoops?”
“Yup.”
Sid felt himself start to frown. Then made himself stop. Stuffing himself with green shit was a recent thing. He’d grown up on so much tinned ravioli and Heinz tomato soup it was a wonder he didn’t bleed orange. Still. There was something painful about picturing Dante alone in his bungalow with a can of hoops and a spoon. Or maybe it was more that Sid wasn’t ready to let him go for the day. “Listen, this is probably a weird thing to say, and I’m totally not making an assumption here—or maybe I am and I’m a bit of a dick—but do you want to come and have a joint with me later? I’ve got some mellow skunk at home, and it’s too good to smoke on my own.”
Dante slowly lowered his shopping bag and treated Sid to a speculative once over. “So it’s you.”
“What is?”
“The reason smoking weed is okay around here.”
“What makes you think I’m the only one?”
“Nothing. But it’s you they changed the rules for.”
Sid couldn’t deny it. “It helps me, which helps them in the long run.”
“They need you, don’t they?”
“I’m cheap as far as master gardeners go, and there’s not as much spare cash around here as you might think.”
Dante laughed. “That’s funny, because they told me there was no spare cash lying around at all, in case I got any ideas.”
“Really?” Sid cringed. “Please tell me that wasn’t Benjamin?”
“I ain’t a rat, so I’m not telling you anything.”
Sid sighed. “You’d have told me if it wasn’t, and for what it’s worth, I’m sorry he said that to you. He knows better than that.”
“It was a fair statement. I copped a seven-year stretch for slinging class As. It’s not a huge leap to think I’d be after the family silver.”
Seven years. Sid swayed a little and struggled to focus and gather the new information in Dante’s casual confession.
Class As.
He’s a drug dealer.
Multiple emotions hit Sid at once, too many and too fast to dissect. He took a breath, but it seemed to go nowhere as his foggy brain betrayed him. “Sorry.” He tapped his temple as Dante looked on, his expression as unreadable as it had been since that morning. “It’s taking me a minute to get my words out.”
“I have time,” Dante said. “You want to go home, though? Get inside where it’s warm? I can help you.”
“I don’t need help.” And warm was the last thing Sid wanted to be unless it involved being naked with— Nice. So you can’t think of a sensible thing to say back to him when he tells you what he went down for, but you can picture him in your bed? Stay classy, dude.
“Sid?”
“Hmm?” Sid blinked and shook his head, trying to clear it, but his wayward train of thought ran away, making its final escape. He stared at Dante, willing whatever they’d been talking about to return to him, but . . .
It didn’t.
Awesome.
“Which place is yours?” Dante was closer than Sid remembered, and he slid cool fingers over Sid’s locked elbow.
“That one.” Sid jerked his head moodily in the general direction of his bungalow. “I already told you, though. I don’t need help.”
“Who said I’m helping you?” Dante waited for Sid’s legs to cooperate, then steered them both towards Sid’s house. “Maybe I just want to see this skunk you’ve hyped up. Weed is good for me too. It, uh, takes the edge off the worst parts of me.”
“What are they?” Sid cursed his slurred words and bit his tongue in the hope of reminding it how to behave. “The worst parts, I mean.”
Dante laughed quietly. “If you’d asked me a few years ago, I’d have been so full of denial I wouldn’t have been able to tell you. These days I have a long fucking list, but I’m working on it.”
“You don’t want to tell me?”
“Not today.”
Sid knew that feeling. He let Dante guide him up the steps to his front door, then reclaimed his arm. “I guess I’ll figure it out for myself if your soul maintenance doesn’t pan out.”
“You’ll figure it out regardless. No one can hide who they are.” Dante leaned against the rendered wall of Sid’s bungalow. “Not forever, anyway.”
Sid opened the door and waived Dante inside. “Why bother trying then?”
“Hiding, or trying to be better?”
“Either. Both. Neither. You don’t sound like you believe people can change.”
Dante followed Sid to the kitchen and hovered in the doorway. “I don’t. It’s the ability to pretend that evolves.”
“So if we return to negative behaviour or thought patterns, that’s . . . what? Regression? Or returning to our true selves?”
“Either. Both. Neither.” Dante smiled a little, then seemed to catch himself and swallow it down. “I was joking about the weed, though. And lying when I said I wasn’t helping you. I thought you were going to fall over.”
“I wasn’t.”
“Then you’re a liar too.”
There was no accusation in Dante’s tone. Just plain facts. Sid would’ve scowled blue murder at anyone else, but at Dante he shook his head and moved to sit on a stool at the breakfast bar before he remembered the greens in his pockets. “Fuck.”
“Forget your salad?”
“It’s not salad. I’m going to cook it.”
“Before or after you sit on it?”
“Fuck off.” Sid retrieved his precious vegetables and laid them on the counter, thankful he’d set the rice to cook before he’d left on his scavenging expedition, as doing it now seemed beyond him. “Do you want to eat with me? I always cook too much.”
“Eat what?”
“Hey, don’t say it with such suspicion. I’d never feed you anything that wasn’t good for you.”
“That’s sweet.” Dante’s guarded expression morphed almost back to humour again. “But I’m okay, really. Maybe another time?”
“Anytime,” Sid said. “I like company.”
“Noted.” Dante started to back up. “See you in the morning?”
“For sure,” Sid replied, but watching Dante leave felt strange—stranger than him being in Sid’s kitchen in the first place. His company was stilted, but it gifted Sid something he hadn’t felt in a long time. Stimulation? Excitement? No, neither word fit, but he couldn’t think hard enough to find one that did.
Dante was nearly at the front door.
“Wait,” Sid blurted.
Dante stopped. He tilted his head in a way that made him seem far cleverer than Sid could ever dream of being, and his face opened up despite the confusion beginning to mar his features. “What is it? Do you need something?”
Yes, but I don’t know what. Sid blew out a breath. “Sorry. I’m a weirdo at the best of times, but you . . . I don’t know.”